Quartz

Artist: Quartz

LP: Camel In the City

Song: "Camel In the City"

[ listen ]

The next record shop I went to in Minnesota (my 4th) was Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, a place that has evidently been around since 1968. (Electric Fetus, I mean. Minneapolis has been around even longer.) Why, that's even before I was born! One of the neat things I found at Electric Fetus is this 1979 LP from a French disco-synth outfit called Quartz. I'd try to glean more information from the worldwide web about Quartz, but I keep falling asleep while I'm typing. Good night.

[ Electric Fetus — Minneapolis, Minnesota ]

Jim & Jean

Artist: Jim & Jean

LP: People World 

Song: "The Planet June"
[ listen ]

Song: "People World"
[ listen ]

Song: "Playground"
[ listen ]

I couldn't think of any better way to spend a grey and rainy Saturday afternoon than to go looking through my LPs to find the sexiest unibrow of all. There was some tough competition, but the winner, by a hair, is Jim Glover of the '60s folk duo Jim & Jean.

[ Jim & Unibrow ]

Not only is Jim smolderingly handsome to start with, and also not wearing any clothes, but when I propped this LP up on my kitchen counter, Jim's eyes seem to follow me all around the room. They even followed me into the bathroom!

Jim & Jean were married to each other when they made this, their third and last, LP in 1968. They didn't stay together much longer, but they were one of those genuine hippie/folk duos that performed together in Greenwich Village as they built a following that led to international stardom. Well, okay; stardom may be too strong a word, but their single "People World" did peak at #94 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Jim went on to release some solo material over the next few decades (and he may have operated a Chevrolet dealership in Tulsa), whereas Jean appeared in plays and then died in the summer of 2007.

Alex

Artist: Alex

LP: Alex

Song: "Flying High (You & I)"
[ listen ]

The Garden is the second and final Oslo record store I was able to make it to—three times—during my visit. The guy working there is super friendly and told me that the used records were in the basement. Down the stairs I went, where I found eight long bins crammed with hundreds of used 7" singles. The trouble is, I was only barely able to slip my visits in at the end of a full day of tourism, and the store closes at 6pm. I simply had to get through all those singles! I found lots of amazing stuff in bin #1, which is all I managed to rummage through on my first visit. I went back the next evening to pick up where I'd left off, but only made it through bins 2-4 before the shop closed. When my sis and I returned to Oslo a week later, I popped in again and managed to flip through bins #5-8 with ten extra minutes to spare! 

Fortunately, ten minutes was plenty of time to unearth a trio of albums by Alex, Norway's reigning queen of '70s disco-rock. This self-titled LP is her 1977 debut—it literally had my name written all over it. 

The sad reality is that there wasn't nearly as much disco-pop being produced in Norway in the 1970s as there had been according to my fantasies. I'd figured that each Scandinavian country probably had their own private version of ABBA, and about two-dozen fairly decent ABBA knock-off bands as well. But actually, Norwegians seem to have been more often listening to music like this and this while ABBA was setting disco balls a-spinning all over the world. 

But then, thank god, there's Alex. Born in Lithuania in 1949 to Polish parents, Alexandra Naumik began singing in Poland, then moved to Norway after marrying film director Haakon Sandøy when she was 21 years old. Seven years later Alex released her first LP, and the rest, as they say, is historical. You can read all this and more on Wikipedia in English or Norwegian. 

Alex was reportedly so popular in Norway that "Alex hair" became a thing—although when I see her hair it automatically brings to mind untrustworthy rope. Her band certainly is a nifty and incredibly Scandinavian-looking bunch. Bjørn Christiansen already has me working on my own "Bjørn hair"; Svein Gundersen has one of the sexiest moustache/unibrow combos I've ever seen, and Brynjulf Blix not only has one of the greatest names in show business, but he looks like he'd be a fun guy to grab a beer with too. Sadly, drummer Per Ivar Johansen died in a tour bus crash three years after the release of this LP.

[ Alex: August 12, 1949 — September 17, 2013 ]

[ The Garden — Oslo, Norway ]

Lon & Derrek Van Eaton

Artist: Lon & Derrek Van Eaton

LP: Brother

Song: "Sun Song"
[ listen ]

After a delicious breakfast with a bunch of friendly folks at Carl's Kountry Kitchen on the outskirts of Syracuse, I headed downtown to check out Sound Garden, the city's only record store. Sadly, the garden wasn't producing much this year. Had someone forgotten to water? I found only one fruit and a couple of vegetables that were ready for the harvest.

One of the veggies was this 1972 LP by Lon & Derrek Van Eaton, who had put together a homemade demo tape that drew the attention of at least half of The Beatles, who, in turn, helped these budding musical brothers get signed to their label, Apple Records. With no vinyl listening station available in the Garden of Sound, I had to take a leap of faith on this one. I figured they'd probably sound kinda' like The Beatles, but maybe more interesting since they hadn't become popular. 

In fact, Wikipedia informs us that George Harrison was fairly certain he had the next big thing on his hands with "Sweet Music," a Van Eaton Brothers song he produced and released as a single before the album came out. No one cared. Then the album got released and everyone ignored that too. Harrison reportedly sent a memo out to the Apple Records marketing staff: "What the !!!!! is the matter out there? 'Sweet Music' is a No. 1 Hit!" It just goes to show, you never can tell who the Americans will decide to throw their panties at. 

The Van Eatons do sound a little like The Beatles, but just knowing that these smouldering naked siblings (I have a brother too, but we never ended up in any of these positions together as far as I can recall)...anyway, just knowing that these sexy siblings never had people throwing panties at them somehow makes them way more alluring. And I can't explain the public indifference toward Lon & Derrek any better than George can. I threw my boxer underwear at the album cover as soon as I saw it at the record store.

Just look at those heavenly eyebrows.

[ Lon & Derrek Van Eaton, nowadays-ish ]

[ Sound Garden — Syracuse, NY ]

Jimmy Little

Artist: Jimmy Little

LP: 7" single

Song: "Royal Telephone"

[ listen ]

Jimmy "Honey Voice" Little sings: "You may talk to Jesus on the Royal Telephone," but of course he forgets to include the phone number! Aboriginal singer James O. Little, of the Yorta Yorta people, was born in Cummeragunja, New South Wales, Australia in 1937 to a musical family—his father led a vaudeville troupe and his mother was a yodeler! By age 16, Jimmy was headed off to Sydney to perform on a radio show and the rest, as they say, is history—which you can read here and here. Little had a big hit with "Royal Telephone," which scurried to the top of the charts all across Australia in 1963. The handsome, velvety-voiced singer also dabbled in acting, appearing in several films including Wim Wenders' UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD in 1991. Jimmy Little did not appear in A CRY IN THE DARK, starring Meryl Streep, though that's another movie set in Australia. It's sometimes (amongst the working classes) also known as "A Dingo Ate My Baby!" But I digress. You can see Jimmy Little performing a leisurely version of "Royal Telephone" on YouTube here:

Jimmy Little on YouTube:

[ "Royal Telephone" ] 

[ James Oswald "Jimmy" Little: March 1, 1937 — April 2, 2012 ]

Al B. Sure!

Artist: Al B. Sure!

LP: 7" single

Song: "Nite and Day"

[ listen ]

Song: "Nuit et Jour"

[ listen ]

Song: "Noche y Dia"

[ listen ]

Born in Boston in June of 1968 with the name Albert Jason Brown III, this swarthy and talented singer was the star quarterback of his high school football team, but he rejected an athletic scholarship to pursue a career in music. Before long, Albert won the Sony Innovators Talent Search contest, got a new name, and began working with Quincy Jones to record and release a string of hit singles—including "Nite and Day," a #1 R&B smash that made it to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1988. The song is presented here in three languages—the French version is from the b-side of the "Nite and Day" single, and the Spanish comes from the flipside of Sure!'s followup single, "Off On Your Own (Girl)." If anyone knows where I can get my hands on the Russian, Tagalog, or Mandarin Chinese versions, please let me know. You can read more about Al B. Sure! on Wikipedia here and go here to visit his official website, where you'll learn about Sure!'s work with Kids Talk, an organization that gives youngsters a voice and helps them to become the world leaders of tomorrow.

Al B. Sure! on YouTube:

[ "Nite and Day" ]

Vicente Fernández

Artist: Vicente Fernández

LP: Ni En Defensa Propia

Song: "Ni En Defensa Propia"

[ don't listen ]

If someone on the street had offered to sell me a color photo of Vicente Fernández, Mexico's "King of Ranchera," in which the handsome singer shows off his hairy chest and torso, I would have readily forked over $5—maybe even $6. So it was my good fortune to find just such a picture for only a buck down in Portland during a little getaway with friends last weekend. There were more photos of Fernández on the back cover (I'm developing a unibrow fetish) and when I got home I discovered that there was even a record inside! "Ni En Defensa Propia" was Vicente Fernández's third LP, released in 1970—just one year before he made his big-screen debut in GRILLED TACOS. Once told that he'd be better off selling peanuts than trying to have a professional singing career, Vicente was signed by CBS Mexico in 1966 after the country's most popular singer died from gall bladder surgery and the label needed to find a new star. Fernández has recorded over 50 albums, and he's still going strong. You can read more about his life and career and find his complete discography on Wikipedia here, and there's a brilliant Vicente Fernández video clip included here:

Vicente Fernández on YouTube:

[ "Volver Volver" ]

May 11, 2012 — Sony just sent me a letter saying that they were NOT happy to find me letting you listen to my copy of "Ni En Defensa Propia" for free. On the news this morning I heard that Sony posted a $5.7 billion loss for 2011, the worst in their 66-year history, with company stocks falling to their lowest point in 30 years. I feel partly to blame. Please help Sony recover by purchasing Vicente Fernández's "Ni En Defensa Propia" CD or its individual mp3s at Amazon.com here.

 [ The moods of Vicente Fernández: beseeching ]

 [ The moods of Vicente Fernández: jubilant ]

 [ The moods of Vicente Fernández: patient ]

 [ The moods of Vicente Fernández: easy-going ]

[ The moods of Vicente Fernández: smoldering ]

Bobby Bloom

Artist: Bobby Bloom

LP: The Bobby Bloom Album

Song: "Oh, I Wish I Knew"

[ listen ]

Song: "Montego Bay"

[ listen ]

With his soul-searching eyes and swarthy good looks that are part Daniel Day-Lewis and part Tom Jones, singer Bobby Bloom is one of the sexiest things I've seen on the front of an album in a long, long time. After singing with a doo-wop group, doing some session work with Shuggie Otis and Louis Jordan, and writing and recording a Pepsi jingle, Bobby Bloom finally had a hit of his own with "Montego Bay," which went to #8 on the U.S. singles charts in 1970. Sadly, Bobby Bloom suffered from depression and his promising career was cut short when he "accidentally" shot himself in February of 1974. You can read about Bobby Bloom here and watch the video for his hit single by clicking on the link below. I have to admit that one of the things I admire most about Bobby Bloom is his unibrow, which gives him an aura of virility, yet also makes him seem thoughtful and tender. Unfortunately, you don't really see the unibrow around much anymore, since guys these days somehow think they look better like this.

Bobby Bloom on YouTube:

[ "Montego Bay" ]

 [ Bobby Bloom: January 15, 1946 — February 28, 1974 ]